In a switching system, packets may be received on one of multiple ports. The packets may be processed by the switching system by applying one or more rules to the received packet. Certain received packets may receive preferential treatment when compared to other packets. As such, it may be desirable to meter and regulate the packets based on this preferential treatment in the switching system. It also may be desirable to apply different rules to the received packets based on the port on which the packet was received. However, it may be expensive and inefficient to allocate rules per port as well as to meter the packets through the switching system.